NEWS: Dennis Now A 'Dangerous Hurricane'

Dennis has exploded, and now has been upgraded to a hurricane. Forecasters are now warning that it could grow perilously strong and pose a serious
threat to the Florida Panhandle. Dennis has now produced maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, and seems to be getting better organized.

www.cbsnews.com
"An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicates Dennis has become a hurricane over the central Caribbean Sea," said forecaster Stacy
Stewart of the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade County.

Forecasters said it could become a Category 3 hurricane by Friday, when it strikes Cuba, and reach the Panhandle or elsewhere on the Gulf Coast early
next week as a strong hurricane.

"The official forecast . . . calls for a major, dangerous hurricane in the northwestern Caribbean Sea and the eastern Gulf of Mexico," said
hurricane forecaster Lixion Avila.

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With all of this talk of climate change and extreme weather we have all seen here, I have to wonder are we reacting to what would have been otherwise
normal news of weather?

It seems like this storm became better organized very quickly.

Could this be an ominous sign of things to come over this hurricane season?

Actually the ominous sign was having 3 tropical storms this early in the hurricane season. I am right now preparing to board up my windows and head
north this weekend if it comes toward my area. I just finished repairing all the damage from Ivan.... I may move north in a few years to get out of
the path of these things. I am 36 now and dont want to live here in my 60's and up running from these things if our climate has been altered so much
as to greatly increaset the number of these Hurricanes.

Lots of weird stuff going on in our world. I suspect something in the deep oceans have occured that we have just not detected yet that is part of or
causing all the increase in volcano, earthquakes and weird altered weather around the globe.

I've seen storms do some pretty weird things. It's our turn to have the quiet seasons out west. There were several seasons recently where Florida
had it easy and we had the close calls. We even had a storm back in the 60s I think it was, that bypassed us, hit Johnston Island, did a u-turn, came
back and nailed us. There's really no way to accurately predict what a hurricane is going to do. You can make decent predictions based on outside
factors, but they're so unpredictable. Hurricane Iniki was passing below us, and made a 90 degree turn to pass right over Kauai and devastate the
Island.

I pray that Florida has a relatively quiet season this year, but if the Gulfstream really is weakening as much as they say, then I think we'll see a
big change in some of the storms. The weakening Gulfstream should also affect the other currents that pass along it and mingle with it.

There's also a great thread in Fragile Earth that covers, now Hurricane Dennis. www.abovetopsecret.com...
From info in that thread, it seems South Florida may be spared the brunt of anything bad, still it looks like it will be a soaker and a Cat 3 when it
hits somewhere on the panhandle.

hurricane.accuweather.com...
Elsewhere, a large tropical wave has just moved off the coast of Africa and is moving west at about 10-15kts. Another wave in the far eastern Atlantic
is along 32 west south of 23 north. Another wave is along 55 west south of 11 north. There are no indications that any of these three waves will be
developing any time soon since they all have to track through cooler waters. However, as we saw with Dennis if any wave can survive the cooler waters
of the central Atlantic and move into the very warm waters of the Caribbean theres opportunity for development. So we are keeping a close eye on these
waves.

I also didn't realize that two of the models still have Dennis coming pretty close to South Florida

Radio stations in Haiti and Jamaica warned people to stay away from rivers that could overflow their banks. Some southern roads in Haiti, which is
dangerously deforested, already were blocked by flooding Wednesday.

Six small communities in the eastern Jamaica parish of St. Thomas were also cut off by flood waters, emergency management spokeswoman Nadene Newsome
said.

Jamaica's Prime Minister P.J. Patterson abandoned the final day of the annual Caribbean summit in St. Lucia, to rush home. Before leaving, he went on
Jamaican national radio to say "I call upon every Jamaican and every community to be prepared ... to protect those who are infirm, the elderly and
the young."

Remember it was less than a year ago when Frances, Ivan and Jeanne, ripped through the Caribbean and was unlike anything seen in many years. In the
end those storms caused hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damages.

Originally posted by Xeven
Actually the ominous sign was having 3 tropical storms this early in the hurricane season.
................
X

Well, actually July 5th is now the earliest date on record for having 4 named storms in the Atlantic. Records seem to be breaking all over the world
lately. Record storms, record lightning strikes, record floods, etc. It is not just in the US, or in the Atlantic that these records keep being
broken almost every year.

000 WTNT34 KNHC 070839 TCPAT4 BULLETIN HURRICANE DENNIS ADVISORY NUMBER 11 NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 5 AM EDT THU JUL 07 2005
...HURRICANE DENNIS EXPECTED TO BECOME STRONGER...HEADING FOR JAMAICA... A HURRICANE WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THE SOUTHWESTERN PENINSULA OF HAITI FROM
THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC BORDER WESTWARD...ALL OF JAMAICA...ALL OF THE CAYMAN ISLANDS...AND PORTIONS OF EASTERN CUBA FOR THE PROVINCES OF
GRANMA...SANTIAGO DE CUBA...AND GUANTANAMO. A HURRICANE WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT
24 HOURS. PREPARATIONS TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION. A HURRICANE WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR PORTIONS OF CENTRAL AND
EASTERN CUBA FOR THE PROVINCES OF SANCTI SPIRITUS...CIEGO DE AVILA...CAMAGUEY...LAS TUNAS...AND HOLGUIN. THE HURRICANE WARNING AND THE HURRICANE WATCH
FOR CUBA WILL LIKELY BE EXTENDED WESTWARD LATER THIS MORNING. INTERESTS IN THE CENTRAL AND WESTERN CARIBBEAN SEA SHOULD MONITOR THE PROGRESS OF THIS
SYSTEM. FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA...INCLUDING POSSIBLE INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY YOUR LOCAL
WEATHER OFFICE. AT 5 AM EDT...0900Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE DENNIS WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 17.0 NORTH...LONGITUDE 74.6 WEST OR ABOUT 160
MILES...260 KM...EAST-SOUTHEAST OF KINGSTON JAMAICA AND ABOUT 225 MILES... 360 KM...SOUTH OF GUANTANAMO CUBA. DENNIS IS MOVING TOWARD THE
WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 15 MPH...24 KM/HR. THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS. ON THIS TRACK...DENNIS IS EXPECTED TO BE
OVER OR VERY NEAR JAMAICA LATER TODAY. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE INCREASED TO NEAR 90 MPH...150 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. DENNIS IS A CATEGORY ONE
HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. ADDITIONAL STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST ...AND DENNIS COULD BECOME A STRONG CATEGORY 2 HURRICANE BY THE TIME IT
REACHES JAMAICA LATER TODAY.

Dennis is now (as of the 8am advisory), a Cat 2 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 105mph and higher gusts. That's just 6mph shy of a Cat 3, and
is slow is it's moving, we could see a Cat 3 storm as early as 11am (the next advisory) or 2pm today.

Well I feel sorry for you people in the Florida keys, but it seems that this year the gulf of mexico coast is the one to be targeted, since about 2
weeks before summer here in GA the weather is so humid and hot that we are going to start growing ferns as part of our flora.

Now its at 115mph sustained winds with a pressure of 956mb with it predicted to strengthen a little more before hitting Cuba. If it gets any stronger
it will be the strongest storm this early in the Atlantic since 1950.

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